One might argue, as famed political philosopher John Rawls did , that equality of opportunity can only take place once liberty is secured against such procedures. But this amendment seems to give up on the idea that each person really will have the same set of opportunities. We will still need a drastic rethink on how we distribute housing, education, health care, recreational activities and many other things to get close to the ideal.
Equality of opportunity necessarily leads to inequality once everyone has the same set of opportunities. These inequalities are supposedly justified because they arise solely from the talent and hard work of the individual.
This raises a different and intractable problem. What do we do about many of our talents being just as arbitrary as our class, race and gender — which are rightly deemed to be unacceptable sources of inequality? There seems no good reason why a person should benefit from the natural lottery rather than the social lottery.
Perhaps inequality is permissible if it results purely from hard work. This sort of equality can seem undesirable, but it can also be understood as one that is impossible to achieve because people are unequal in so many of the respects that affect outcomes, such as natural talent, health, their attitudes to hard work and in their interests and preferences. This can lead us to favor equal opportunities and to allow the inequality of outcomes.
However, we should note that equal outcomes may still be very important indicators of inequality of opportunity, and that equal outcomes may be appropriate for children and others who lack responsible agency. The bare concept of Equality of Opportunity as a relation between agents, obstacles and goals, leaves a lot to be filled out. There are many different ways in which we could all face the same obstacles with respect to the same goals.
By varying the different goals and obstacles we vary the conception of Equality of Opportunity and different views will offer different guidance, and some will be more attractive than others. Different goals can make a difference in the following way.
Opportunity for undesirable or irrelevant goals, such as opportunities to be mugged or to count grass, will not be included. Some goals may be trivial and it may not matter whether people have different opportunities with respect to those goals. For instance, opportunities to tie your shoe laces or grow a tree in your garden are less important than opportunities to find meaningful work or get a good education.
We will have to think hard about exactly which ones do matter and which do not. In addition, we must think carefully about the kinds of obstacles that are morally relevant and the ones that are morally irrelevant with respect to the goal.
As such, ability to learn would be an obstacle that is relevant to the distribution of opportunity to go to college, but sexuality, religion and race would not. Which obstacles are morally relevant will depend on a more substantive account of what matters morally in each case.
Different accounts of what are relevant and what goals matter are offered by rival conceptions of equality of opportunity. Conceptions of Equality of Opportunity can be more or less demanding. The obstacles may be more or less difficult to overcome or the goals may be more or less difficult to achieve. For instance, if we think that obstacles such as social class, in addition to race, gender, sexuality and religious belief, are irrelevant to the goal that is desired, then we will have to try much harder to minimize differences in social class or minimize the effect social class has on the distribution of these goods.
We could also specify the nature of the obstacle in different ways, such as formal or legal racial discrimination rather than explicit or implicit bias. The view can also be more or less demanding in terms of the goals we specify.
So, for instance, we might think that everyone should have an equal opportunity to reach a basic standard of living or that everyone should have an equal opportunity to reach a high or equal standard of living.
These views would support different policies and may require much more of our institutions, and greater individual effort, than others.
They may also reflect the values of individual freedom and equal respect better or worse. We will now briefly focus on two influential conceptions of Equality of Opportunity and show how they differ in their demandingness. We then go on to explain the special relationship that conceptions of Equality of Opportunity have with education and schooling.
Formal Equality of Opportunity is arguably the least demanding conception of Equality of Opportunity. It focuses on the formal rules that stand in the way of achieving particular goals, such as employment and admission to schools. Different types of formal equality of opportunity can focus on many or few goals.
What unites these views is a focus on formal discriminatory rules as an irrelevant obstacle to some role. Policies that are related to this conception include requirements that advertisements for jobs do not specify racial, religious or gender characteristics. They must be perfectly general such that anyone can apply without violating the formal rule. This vision of a free and equal society can be satisfied merely by ensuring that formal rules are properly general. The view is therefore compatible with private discrimination, implicit bias, and unequal distributions of resources.
On the other hand, Equality of Opportunity for Welfare is perhaps the most demanding conception of Equality of Opportunity. Individual choice is the only relevant obstacle. In other words, a person should be no worse off than others through no fault or choice of their own. If a person chooses to take risks or gambles, any resulting inequality would not be problematic, but if a person is a victim of bad luck, such as a natural disaster or disability, then any resulting inequality would need to be remedied for equality of opportunity to be fully realized.
This view is highly demanding and would require a radical redistribution of wealth to both those who are less naturally talented and to those who are otherwise disadvantaged through no fault of their own, for example, through upbringing, through natural bad luck as well as social class, racism, sexism and religious discrimination.
Addressing these inequalities may require investing in schooling, sports facilities and social networks as well as healthcare and assistance for the disabled and heavily regulated jobs markets. It should be noted that the more demanding the view the greater the encroachment on some putatively valuable forms of individual freedom.
For instance, in order to ensure that wealth, social background and natural luck do not act as an obstacle for the poor it may be necessary to tax the earnings of the well-off. Some will claim that this violates the entitlements of the rich to their resources, and is therefore too high a price to pay. This may lead those people to accept a less demanding conception of Equality of Opportunity.
Others will claim that taxing the wealthy is an acceptable price to pay to ensure that poor people have substantively equal opportunities to secure good jobs, adequate healthcare and education and to have means to support their families and live a decent life.
There are other conceptions of Equality of Opportunity that are only moderately demanding. The two extreme views above, however, help us to see and make sense of dominant ideologies on the left and the right, and therefore historical public political disagreements. We can characterize much of contemporary political argument as being about what the best conception of Equality of Opportunity is, which partly explains why it is such an important idea to understand.
Defenders of small government and individual responsibility on the right may be drawn to something resembling the conception of Formal Equality of Opportunity because going further requires interference with individual entitlements and a bigger state. They may go further than Formal Equality of Opportunity and instead favor the Meritocratic Conception of Equality of Opportunity, which requires redistribution to ensure that hard work and talent, and not discrimination and favoritism, determine hiring practices.
Those who believe in meritocracy may consider some taxation to be a price worth paying for fairer hiring practices. Defenders of more substantive equal chances, who care about equalizing school quality and school funding, as well as providing for health care, will be drawn to more demanding ideals that more closely approximate Equality of Opportunity for Welfare. They may be put off by the demandingness of the conception of Equality of Opportunity for Welfare, and instead favor the conception of Fair Equality of Opportunity, which condemns inequalities in social background as obstacles to achieving valuable goals in life.
Such a view will require redistribution to ensure that hard-working and talented individuals from the working class have the same chance of success as similarly hard-working and talented individuals from the middle and upper-classes. This kind of view may advocate increased per pupil funding for the working-class. However, if implemented effectively, the EEO policies add to the brand recognition of an organisation based on its actions toward their commitment to fair and equal workforce conduct.
It not only uplifts employee morale but also makes significant differences in profitability and productivity, thereby increasing the total revenue.
These policies have a positive impact on corporate stock value as they moderate the cost associated with lower morale and revenue. However, on devising and implementing one, companies should educate and train their workforce about the growing incidents of workplace conflict due to prejudices based on background, race, sex, culture, religion, language, etc.
It is the responsibility of an organisation to strive for a safe, fair and inclusive work environment for their workers where they can prosper and contribute intrinsically to the organisation??? That is why we see an increase in commitment from organisations of all sizes, from small and medium business to larger organisations, to train their staff and have policies in place for things such as work health and safety , privacy , workplace bullying , sexual harassment and equal employment opportunity.
That is because we now recognise the importance of both physical security and social protection for our people. Workplace Compliance Blog. Workplace Compliance Resources. Improved recruitment Since it is a requirement enforced by the law to consider all applications equally regardless of their background, race, culture, religion, language, etc.
Increased employee engagement The Equal Employment Opportunity policies allow employees to openly interact and engage with each other without discriminating peers on their races, sex, religion, or their hierarchical rank in the organisation. A norm of equality say, in treatment or concern is never the ultimate ground of any other moral principle. Are we born with an innate moral compass or is it something we develop as we grow? Whether humans are born good or evil has been debated by philosophers for centuries.
Morality is not just something that people learn, argues Yale psychologist Paul Bloom: It is something we are all born with. At birth, babies are endowed with compassion, with empathy, with the beginnings of a sense of fairness. Morality, many people would say, is a matter of encouragement or persuasion, either by empathy or by arguments; it is not something that can be taught. An obvious answer is that we have learned to do so through socialization, that is, our behaviors were shaped from birth onward by our families, our preschools, and almost everything we contacted in our environments.
Morality is an inner sense of rightness about our behavior and the behavior of others. Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search.
0コメント